


We're Safe Now

by 2babyturtles



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, F/M, Gen, Love, Murder, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Parallel Universes, Post-Canon, Romantic Fluff, Strength, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-05-27 18:14:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15030434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2babyturtles/pseuds/2babyturtles
Summary: When Ellie wakes up from a terrible nightmare, she's just grateful Alec is there to help her fall back asleep. What she doesn't know is that she's about to be assigned a case that is far worse than any nightmare and that will push her and DI Hardy to new extremes.





	1. "Terrible," she agreed.

The crunch of gravel under Ellie’s shoes was the only sound in Broadchurch, it seemed, but her head was too full to ponder the irony of that. A cold breeze cracked the dawn as she breathed out clouds of misted air, and her thoughts turned fleetingly to the cup of coffee she’d left steaming on the countertop at home. She scowled before returning to thoughts of murder.

She wasn’t the one committing the murder, although that’s not to say her thoughts never went that direction. Instead, she was reliving the scene of someone else’s murder, and trying desperately to examine her memories for evidence she knew she wouldn’t find. The killer wasn’t perfect but certainly as close as possible, and the victim’s glassy eyes seemed to find their way into the early morning sunrise and stare hauntingly at Ellie as she ascended the short set of stairs to the police station. Hardy was already waiting for her.

“What took you so long, Miller?” he asked, already exasperated. She was angry, too, but still felt like it was unfair for Hardy to take it out on her. She was the one trying to help him solve the damn thing, after all.

“I made myself a cup of coffee,” she grumbled at him. “And then left it at home. You’re not the only one who’s stressed out, Hardy.”

“Well if you were going to leave it at home, you shouldn’t have wasted time making it! Come on, we’ve got a lot to do.” He turned and led the way inside the station before Ellie could argue with him.

The station was bustling with nervous energy, the kind that keeps officers sharp. It was always like this when a new case came in and, as morbid as it was, the effect was a positive one. Eager to work and still full of hope, officers made fewer mistakes in those early days of new cases, before the nervous energy became desperate energy and the shining eyes became glazed ones. Certainly, with a tragedy in the community, there was no shortage of grim expressions, but the hopeful set of jaws gave Ellie a good feeling.

Desks were clean, per Hardy’s longstanding policy on the matter, and officers were busily setting up the evidence boards behind drawn plastic curtains in one area of the station. No one who wasn’t trying to see case notes would be able to, and no excuse for accidents would get anyone off the hook.

Hardy entered the area first and seemed to assess the officers pinning up pictures of the deceased as much as the pictures themselves. His expression was tense and Ellie was sure his sleepless nights had already begun. Not for the first time was she grateful he’d gone ahead with his heart surgery.

“No identification on the victim, yet?” he confirmed with the nearest officer.

“No, sir. We’re still checking missing persons records.” The man didn’t look at Hardy when he answered and Ellie was surprised to see that Hardy didn’t comment on it. He seemed more affected by the pictures he was seeing than usual and Ellie allowed her gaze to brush them herself.

Her eyes fell on the face of the young victim and she felt like those ghostly eyes were drawing her in again. She saw the moon and sun there and the depths of the ocean were in her expression. She saw pain. When she looked closer, she realized it was her own teenage face in the photo and she backed away suddenly.

She woke up.

 

Alec’s arm was across her chest in the same soft position it had been in when she fell asleep, except now it was tense. She woke with a gasp and grabbed his arm, clutching it fearfully. She turned her head, eyes wide, and saw Alec looking back at her, no hint of sleep on his face. He didn’t even look irritated to have been woken up, just concerned at Ellie’s sudden jolt.

“Bad dream?” he whispered, slowly moving his hand to put it against her face.

She stifled her initial flinch and then relaxed into his touch, grateful for his patience.

“Terrible,” she agreed.

He was quiet for a moment, allowing her room to tell him about it without putting any pressure on her to do so. When she didn’t speak, he hugged her tightly against himself, the skin of his arm pressing warmly against her body.

“Was it possible?” he asked softly, reminding her of reality without telling her to calm down. She hated to be told to calm down.

She thought about his question for a moment and decided that, barring time travel and some very strange parallel universes, no, it wasn’t possible. She told him as much and relaxed some as he smiled gently.

“Good,” he told her. “Nothing’s going to happen. We’re safe now.”

This time, she smiled, too. She loved that he used ‘we’ so casually and she loved that she loved him.

“Yes,” she agreed. “We’re safe now.”

“I love you, too,” he mumbled, knowing the direction her thoughts were turning. He was falling asleep again and she stifled a giggle against his chest as she rolled towards him. She wasn’t sure how he always knew that she thought those three little words before falling asleep but he did seem to know and she was grateful for it.

Dozens of miles away, in an abandoned building with a leaky roof, officers were responding to the scene of a crime after a body was called in. They moved slowly, their steps weighted by trepidation, and when their flashlights lit the victim’s face, they stopped.

One of the officers, although it was impossible to tell which one since they thought the same thing and either of them might’ve said it, whispered to his partner. “Bloody hell,” he began, breaking the sharp silence. “She looks just like DS Miller.”


	2. "Why do they have to be brown?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah so I'm fairly well-versed on some basics of forensics (way too much true crime podcasts and tv shows) but the odds of this being realistic are slim to none. Don't worry about it.

Ellie did not think her day was going to be a good one. She hated to be so negative, particularly when Alec was trying so hard to keep both their spirits up, but the call that morning had set her on edge. It wasn’t even light out yet, the first rays of lights still crackling behind the horizon, but Ellie wished the day would just end.

“You don’t need to worry so much,” Alec said when she expressed her concerns. He peered at her over his glasses as he took a bite of toast and washed it down with some tea. His willingness to eat real food had increased tenfold since moving in with Ellie but she still couldn’t get him to eat a full breakfast. “Everything’s going to be fine. This isn’t our first homicide investigation.”

“Yes and our first one turned out so well,” she snapped, instantly regretting it. She grimaced but Alec took it calmly.

“No, it didn’t,” he admitted. “But things are better now, it’s been almost five years.”

Ellie could feel tears building in her eyes and shook her head, standing up straighter and refocusing her attention on the cup of coffee she was preparing. She’d packed a Scotch egg into her bag already and nibbled at a bowl of cereal she was pretending to enjoy.

Suddenly, Alec was behind her, his hands on her shoulders. She didn’t have to turn around to know he wasn’t looking at her, his eyes downcast and head down instead. She sighed and let his closeness comfort her as he rested his forehead against her back.

“You don’t have to take this one if it’s going to be too much,” he murmured.

Ellie was quiet, considering his suggestion.

“No,” she finally decided, turning around. “I’m your partner and I won’t let my partner take on a case like this without me.”

“Good. Then let’s go.” He raised his eyebrows in that famous way of his. DI Hardy, ever the impatient detective, regardless of whatever Alec Hardy, the loving partner, was.

Ellie managed a smile as she picked up her coat and bag off the back of a nearby chair and followed him out the front door. He locked it behind them and she took a moment to breathe the cool air, surprised by the sharpness of the chill that filled her lungs. A plume of misted fog escaped her lips as she breathed out.

Alec was by her side in just a moment and they set off towards the car together, Ellie taking the driver’s seat. It wasn’t until they had parked and were walking up the stairs to the police station that Ellie realized she’d left her coffee at home. A shiver ran down her spine.

“It’s not that cold, Ell, perk up,” Alec said, stepping past her with the advantage of his longer legs. He was in detective mode now and she knew not to worry about his sudden change of tone. She had changed tones, too, as they approached their shared place of work and she was about as ready to strangle DI Hardy as she was to find an abandoned closet for herself and Alec. The dual roles weren’t as exhausting she had feared they would be, but sometimes made for an irritating morning when she was already as on edge as she was that day.

“Cold enough for your poor soul to thrive,” she muttered behind his back, letting some of the day’s cynicism into her voice. If Alec could hear her, he ignored her.

Officers inside the station weren’t hiding their discomfort well and Ellie searched their faces for some sign of a reason as she walked them. A few of them nodded and she returned the gesture.

“Morning.” She forced a smile.

Pictures from the crime scene had been taken and printed but Ellie and Alec didn’t look. Flat portrayals of tragic images tend to make odd things stand out when they shouldn’t and it was always their preference to attend the scene of the crime in person before seeing any pictures taken. Ellie, in particular, believed strongly in the sense of living a scene as it was, the way the victim and perpetrators had.

The body had only been discovered an hour or so ago and forensics experts were already there, collecting what evidence they could without disturbing anything. Officers would be keeping the area cordoned off and checking the surrounding area for anything that might’ve been dropped or discarded. Ellie didn’t have to be there to know that this was happening, and she dreaded going at all.

“We’re gone, Miller,” Alec announced, coming back out of the office he’d just gone into. Ellie couldn’t see him carrying anything new or having dropped anything off so she wasn’t sure why he’d gone in his office in the first place, except perhaps habit. He was a man of routine, after all.

Ellie rolled her eyes and followed him, thinking again of the Scotch egg in her bag. It sounded good and her stomach was rumbling, but she was afraid that if she ate anything before she saw the scene and whatever it was that had put the whole station on edge, she wouldn’t be able to keep it down.

She thought again of her dream and wondered why the energy was so low this morning. The officers who had first responded to the scene were back at the station and neither of them would make eye contact with her as she walked by. One of them was sitting at a desk and did look up at one point, squinting at her as if to see the details of her face from far away, before turning back to the paper in front of him and nodding to himself. She wondered what she had indirectly confirmed for him.

“Brown,” he muttered. “Why are they brown?”

The other officer nudged him sharply with his elbow and coughed. Ellie felt her eyebrows come together but didn’t have time to ask questions as Alec began hollering from the hallway, something about wasting daylight, despite the early hour.

Ellie drove them to the address Alec read to her from his phone and thought again of her coffee. She refused to show how tired she was although the dark bags under her eyes undoubtedly did the job for her. Alec didn’t comment on it but she wasn’t sure if it was because he wasn’t paying attention, or if he was being nice.

“Abandoned building,” Alec said, reading from the information he’d been sent. “Went up in flames last year and hasn’t been properly demolished yet. Kids who found her said she was a soupy mess from the rain dripping through the roof on her all night and the charred floor mixing it all up. It’ll be tough to collect any evidence.”

“Char footprints might be easy to find, though,” Ellie remarked. “And it’ll be easy to see if she walked inside or was carried.”

“I suppose so.” Alec was quiet, lost in whatever thoughts he had before visiting a crime scene. A homicide scene. Ellie’s thoughts turned, as usual, to murder.

They pulled up outside the house in one of the neighborhoods on the outskirts of Broadchurch. This particular location didn’t have a view of the ocean or any decent parks nearby and Ellie wondered at it for a moment.

“Why didn’t they rebuild? Where did the previous tenants go?” she asked.

“Nothing in here. Looks like the house was already empty when it caught fire. Squatters left a campfire going after they’d left and it caught.”

Ellie nodded. “Shall we?”

They started up the walkway to the front door, stepping around overgrown grass and weeds. Alec glanced at her over his glasses again.

“You aren’t your usual cheery self,” he acknowledged. “Hangover?”

She smiled at this, enjoying the nickname he used for the groggy mornings after bad dreams broke up the sleep before. Then her expression fell again as she thought about the answer. “Yeah,” she said. “I guess so.”

He hesitated a moment, careful to maintain their strict working relationship during working hours, and then put a hand on her shoulder. “I wouldn’t want any other detective to be here, Ell. Let’s catch this shitbag.”

Ellie laughed, throwing her head back. “’Shitbag,’ huh?”

Alec cracked a smirk. “No good?”

She didn’t answer as she pulled herself back together, deciding laughter wasn’t appropriate for a murder scene. She didn’t let the feeling leave her though, and smiled gently at Alec as he walked in front of her through the door of the burned out house.

Then she grimaced.

The walls were covered with blood, but not smeared or splashed blood. Instead, small circles of blood dotted the walls from floor nearly to the ceiling. They were fingerprints and they made up an image of a face on the wall. They were both silent as the iron and salt smell of dried blood washed over them.

“We should be able to get an approximate height of whoever did this from how high they go up the wall,” Alec finally managed. Ellie nodded. She wasn’t sure who he was talking to until someone from SOCO responded on the other side of him.

“The highest print is all the way up to the ceiling,” the man replied, pointing at a small grouping of prints further down the hallway. “They must’ve stood on something to reach those, none of us can get up that high. Doesn’t tell us much.”

Alec grunted. “Gives us a fingerprint,” he said.

“Unless it’s hers,” the man said. He gestured further into the house and Alec and Ellie turned in that direction, watching their steps and moving carefully as they made their way towards the victim.

Alec saw her before Ellie did and she practically ran into him when he stopped suddenly.

“Geez,” she said, stepping back and glancing up at him. “What are you doi-“

“Ellie,” Alec whispered, stepping back and bumping into her. She thought she heard an edge of panic creeping into his voice. She wanted to respond but she couldn’t find any words to say to break down his sudden fear.

“It’s not,” another man said, also from SOCO. “But the resemblance is uncanny.”

Alec’s head turned slowly and his eyes were wide with fear and concern as he looked at Ellie. He seemed to cringe away from her face so close to his. She withdrew, confused, and turned to see the victim on the floor of the living room.

A pair of glassy eyes stared at her. A pair of brown eyes, more familiar than any other. A mass of curled hair was soaked in blood that pooled around the victim from a wound in her head. The chin featured a familiar dimple.

Ellie was silent as she stood, very much alive, looking down at the face she’d seen in the mirror since she could remember.

Finally, she managed to speak. “What the fuck is this?”


	3. "They don't need us for this."

Alec spoke first, but even he didn’t break the silence right away. Ellie didn’t hear what he said but it sounded like a question. A woman, shorter than Ellie and wearing the uniform SOCO outfit, led her outside and to a bench in the yard that must not’ve burned when the house did.

“Do you have any family in the area?” the woman asked quietly.

Ellie thought of Tom and Fred, and started to answer, before realizing the woman was asking about the victim. “Not that she could be,” Ellie replied. “No, she’s not family.”

The woman nodded. “I’m Hannah,” she said. “Would you like me to stay with you? You’ve had quite a shock.”

Irritation rose in Ellie’s stomach, an emotion she had become more familiar with in recent years and one she wasn’t proud of. She realized she’d dropped her gaze and had fixed it on the sidewalk in front of her when she had to look up to answer Hannah’s question. When she did, she saw Alec walking towards them from the house.

“No, that’s alright.” She even managed to sound polite and made a mental note to thank Hannah for her kindness some other time.

Nodding again, Hannah stood up and watched Alec close the distance between them, only leaving Ellie’s side when he was close enough to replace her at it. Ellie heard him murmur a quiet ‘thank-you’ but it seemed so out of character for him when he was on duty that she doubted it as soon as she thought it.

Alec sat down beside her, farther away than she would’ve liked. The look in his eyes when they’d seen the victim seemed seared in her mind.

“I can’t get it out of my head,” she said, voicing her concerns.

Alec was quiet. “It’s only just happened,” he said. “That’s normal.”

Ellie scoffed. “Normal?” she demanded, turning slightly so she could face him. He looked at her with his usual expression but she was too frustrated to be relieved. “Nothing about this is bloody normal.”

She stopped there and her words hung in the drizzly morning air.

“Aye,” Alec said, after another several moments. The conversation seemed to be dragging but Ellie wasn’t sure she was ready for it to end. It didn’t seem to have gone anywhere. “But we’re detectives, Miller. So do you want a replacement, or do you want to go back inside?”

A knot twisted in Ellie’s stomach. In her head, she knew he only meant a replacement as detective. Somehow, she couldn’t stop the insecurities that made her question whether he meant a replacement partner or a replacement…whatever she was in his personal life. She supposed she was his partner either way.

Taking a deep breath and pushing herself to her feet, Ellie scrunched her nose as she looked at Alec, still seated. “Let’s go, sir, we’ve a killer to catch.”

She didn’t wait to see Alec’s reaction but he must’ve expected her decision because he was on his feet and at her heel as she entered the abandoned house again. This time, neither of them stopped in the entryway, trusting that SOCO would keep them posted of any new information found there.

They came to the living room and this time, Ellie didn’t stop. Instead, she stepped around the pool of blood to stand by the victim’s feet, peering at the stomach, legs, and arms; peering anywhere but the face. The man from SOCO, someone Ellie now remembered was named Enrique, was waiting for them and simply nodded as they entered the room.

“Aged between fourteen and seventeen; no identification on the body or located in the house so far; cause of death appears to be some sort of trauma to the back of the head. As far as we’ve seen so far, that’s the only injury, but we won’t know for sure until we get a full post-mortem done.” Enrique rattled off the information in an objective way, neutral and even. Alec seemed to relax as they settled back into their usual routine but Ellie’s stomach still rolled.

She tried to pay attention to the words, but all she could think was how people would talk about her when she died. The question made her sick.

“Anything missing?” she asked.

“Other than the identification?” Alec grunted in the affirmative and Enrique went on. “There’s no wallet, phone, or purse anywhere, and she’s not wearing any jewelry. Hard to tell whether they’re missing or whether she just didn’t have any. Otherwise, her outfit is complete and she doesn’t seem to be missing any clothing.”

Alec and Ellie both relaxed a bit to hear this, although they knew it didn’t rule out a sexually motivated crime. It wouldn’t have been the first scene they’d attended that was misleading in this way, but they hoped for the best, particularly considering the circumstances.

“Do we know anything about who she is or where she came from at all?” Alec asked, something in his voice making him sound as desperate as he did stern.

Enrique hesitated. “If you’re confirming identification, no, no clues. Not yet, at least. We may learn more in the post-mortem.” Alec shifted his weight and fixed his eyes on Ellie, watching as she put on rubber gloves and reached for the victim’s left ankle. “If you’re asking why she bears such a strong resemblance to DS Miller, I can’t really say.”

“Do you know?” Alec asked, turning his words towards Ellie now. “Do you have family that might look like you? A cousin or an estranged sister?”

Ellie paused just shy of lifting the victim’s trousers away from her ankle and scowled at her partner. “Don’t you think I would’ve told you if I thought I knew who she is?” she demanded. Alec looked unabashed but dropped the line of inquiry.

Shaking her head, Ellie turned back to her task and found what she’d been afraid to find. In black letters, surrounded by tiny red roses, were the initials “J+E” tattooed into the victim’s ankle. Her own ankle suddenly seemed to itch, and she wondered if she could scratch it hard enough to rip the ink she so regretted from her skin.

“Found anything?” Enrique asked as Alec turned to look around the room.

Ellie started, as if breaking from a trance. “I’m not sure,” she replied. “She’s got a tattoo on her ankle. Might help us later.”

Enrique nodded and raised a hand to summon one of the forensic photographers over. “Maybe she’s eighteen then. How’d you know to look?” he asked.

Stepping back to allow room for the photographer, she tugged at her pockets, making sure the legs of her trousers were brushing her shoes and that no skin was visible. “Lucky guess,” she said. “Her socks caught my attention and I was curious.”

Enrique turned to see that the victim’s socks were plain white. He glanced back at Ellie, puzzled, but didn’t say anything and Ellie took the opportunity to leave the scene. Stepping carefully across the room to Alec’s side, she felt a frown forming as a morose mood crashed over her in waves.

“SOCO can finish processing the scene, do you want to get back? We can check out the missing persons database, see if anyone’s reported anyone to the station?” she asked.

“They don’t need us there for that, we could make a call and get that done,” he replied, squinting at a dilapidated shelving unit that had crashed to the floor in the fire.

“They don’t need us here for this, either,” Ellie said, mostly to herself.

Alec bent down to take a closer look and Ellie leaned forward to see what he was examining. On one shelf, burned books and trinkets still lined the shelves, largely seared into position from the heat of the flames. However, one neat circle of pale wood stood out, evidence of an item having been removed from there since the fire had destroyed the house.

“Fire must not have been widespread,” Ellie remarked, surprised that any of the shelf’s contents remained.

“No,” Alec agreed. “But what’s missing? A teacup or a candlestick maybe? Could be a murder weapon.”

Ellie thought about that. “That’s strange, though, isn’t it? How’d the killer get the girl here and convince her to come in, and then kill her, all without any sort of weapon to threaten her with or anything?”

“Doesn’t mean the killer didn’t threaten her. Maybe they had a gun or a knife and there was a struggle. Dropped it and grabbed whatever was nearby?”

Ellie swiveled to see how far away the victim’s body was and realized Alec could be right. “So either there was a premeditated crime—murder or otherwise—and it went wrong, or it wasn’t premeditated at all.” Alec nodded. “What’s down there?” she asked, pointing.

In the corner of the same shelf, near marks of rubbed off char on the wood, a gold band shown. Ellie straightened up and called for the photographer’s attention. Alec stood as well.

“That’s odd,” he commented.

“Do you think it’s the victim’s?” Ellie wondered. “It looks like a woman’s ring.”

Alec’s face was a knot of thoughts. “Yes, it does,” he replied, eyeing her. “Our killer was a woman.”

“You don’t think it’s the victim’s?”

“I don’t,” he replied. “But I’m not sure why.”


End file.
